Ten years on

[Graham Kennedy]

Ten years on, I hope everyone will take a moment to stop and remember the victims of 9/11 in their own way.

Rest in peace.

[RK_Striker_JK_5]

RIP

[Mikey]

Thank you, GK. I wasn't going to make a thread, because for me publicizing a personal memoriam isn't the best method of remembering - unfortunately, due to geographic proximity and educational experience a memory of 9/11 does include people I had known and not just a general loss.

However, it means a lot - to me, at least, for whatever that's worth - to hear this from someone outside the U.S. While the people worldwide who have gone on since 9/11 to "blame the victim" as embodied by my country, or minimized it as a simple tragic event no different from any other act of man or nature, may be a minority worldwide, they are a vocal one. It's nice to hear a reminder that people can just act like decent people, without regard to national boundaries or cultural differences.

[Reliant121]

A tragedy is still a tragedy, no matter what people's views on the victim nation are. RIP.

[Tinadrin Chelnor]

A tragedy is still a tragedy, no matter what people's views on the victim nation are. RIP.

Agreed. The loss of a single innocent life is a tragedy, regardless of nationality or ideology. RIP.

[Captain Picard's Hair]

I didn't lose anyone I knew though I was a firsthand witness from across the Hudson river where I was attending university at the time. The hole that was left in the skyline greeted me every day, for a time measured in months filled by a giant eerily hanging cloud of dust and smoke that took ages to settle (fed by fires that lingered in the debris on the ground). One might bemoan some of the ways the event has shaped American politics and policies in the decade since but the tragedy is no less profound regardless of the response.

[Mark]

I'll never forget, I had taken vacation from my security job for two weeks, and we supposed to get on a damned plane that morning at 10:00am HST. Of course then I got a barely coherant phonecall from my mom screaming "The towelheads blew up New York! Stay away from the airport!" I thought mom took too many ambien again, but when I turned on the TV as we packed, we saw the "famous" 9/11 footage.

What a complete and totally useless waste of human life.